Make A Set Of Wooden Pliers With 10 Cuts

[Mergie Master]

This is pretty neat. It would be cool to show your kids or grandkids. They'd think you were some kind of wizard. Plus they'd get a free old school toy.



When I was a kid my parents didn't have a lot of money so my dad used to carve toys for me. I wish now I would have kept them. I remember a couple. One was a working belt buckle I wore that looked like a monkey. He carved it out of a peach pit. The other was sort of a rattle. It was a solid walnut ball inside a square cage. He carved it from a solid 4" x 4" piece of walnut. The top and bottom of the cage was solid, but it had bars like a cage at the zoo on the sides. He carved the bars and then carved the ball out inside them so the ball couldn't be removed.

At least I still have the solid walnut bedroom suit he made. He built 2 end tables, the double size headboard, chest of drawers and curved glass from bookcase with 2 drawers. It still looks like something you'd see on the showcase floor in a furniture store. Dad was just good with wood.

He even built the fastest boat (at the time) on Lake Greenwood when I was about 7. It was a 15' runabout with a mahogany deck, bow and trim. The deck was beautiful. It had a portal in the bow deck for storing life jackets (there were no life vests back then except for military surplus Mae Wests), etc.

He put a 35HP Scott-Etwater (largest outboard around here then) on it. He got the motor cheap and rebuilt it. It would pull 2 grown men on skis. I used to ski behind that boat a lot when I was 7 and 8 yrs old.

[CYPRESNEAK]

Yep.. About 2 hours and 100 cuts later, I'd be drinking over a little fire of basswood twigs.

[charlie horse]

Merg...My pops was born in 1924, he would carve wood and make toys for me too. I have walking sticks, slingshots and bows he would carve..they would have rings and grooves to reflect my age at the time he make them for me. He taught me how to make what he called a tractor, a wooden thread spool with a rubber band and a stick. The spool would have notches carved so it would make a noise as it took off across the floor.
My kid is getting an Ipad for Christmas...

[Mergie Master]

Merg...My pops was born in 1924, he would carve wood and make toys for me too. I have walking sticks, slingshots and bows he would carve..they would have rings and grooves to reflect my age at the time he make them for me. He taught me how to make what he called a tractor, a wooden thread spool with a rubber band and a stick. The spool would have notches carved so it would make a noise as it took off across the floor.
My kid is getting an Ipad for Christmas...

That is cool and it made me remember a few more my dad made for me.

Dad was born in 1929. He didn't teach me how to make any, guess I just liked to play with them, but I was pretty small. But he did make me a tractor like you mentioned once that I remember. He used to make all my darts by sticking the eye of a needle into the end of a wooden kitchen match that he cut the head off of. He would split a cross in the other end and put 2 small pieces of paper in it for vanes. I remember sticking one in my Aunt Nanny's (my black nanny) butt once. She whooped me the snot out of me too. Damn I loved that woman.

Dad also used to make me what he called a "whirlybird". It was a small round wooden dowel (a little smaller than a number 2 pencil) with notches carved on one side. He had carved a little wooden propeller which had a small finishing tack holding it on. It was real loose so it would spin. I would use another dowel or a pencil to rub against the edge of the notches and the propeller would start spinning. The faster I rubbed the faster it would spin. If I rubbed on the other edge of the notches the prop would stop and then start turning the other way.

I'm sure there is an equation to explain that, but to a kid it was pure magic.

He always made my slingshots out of the fork of a dogwood tree. Used strips of inner tube for the rubbers. Back then the rubber had memory, now days it won't stretch right.



Yeah my grandboy got an ipod touch.

[fuzzy]

My dad was born in 31. He said they were so poor when he was a kid that if he didn't wake up with a hard on Christmas morning, he didn't have anything to play with!

[Palmetto Bug]

Mergie,

My dad made those whirlybirds too but he called them hooey sticks. They were sort of a magic trick we could fool our friends with. We'd get them spinning and then make them reverse by yelling "hooey" at them, while imperceptibly switching sides on the notches. It was fun to watch your friends get frustrated when yelling hooey had no effect for them.

[USMCsilver]

That fella needs to be in a magic show, because I sure as shit had no idea what was going on.

Pretty impressive.

[cut em']

Yep.. About 2 hours and 100 cuts later, I'd be drinking over a little fire of basswood twigs.

My thoughts exactly

[Mergie Master]

Mergie,

My dad made those whirlybirds too but he called them hooey sticks. They were sort of a magic trick we could fool our friends with. We'd get them spinning and then make them reverse by yelling "hooey" at them, while imperceptibly switching sides on the notches. It was fun to watch your friends get frustrated when yelling hooey had no effect for them.

It's a great idea.

If I'd have known to use it as magic I'd have collected a bag full of aggies. Or maybe I could have even made a few pennies from the richer kids.

That would have saved me from having to beat their butts and take their coins.

[hunting_jim]

Yep.. About 2 hours and 100 cuts later, I'd be drinking over a little fire of basswood twigs.

This!